


The controllables

by Scoby



Series: Reylo around Europe [6]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Formula One, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Car Accidents, Drunk Driving, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Italian Solo Family, Leia Organa & Ben Solo & Ferraris, Light Angst, Non-Graphic Smut, Public Display of Affection, Race Car Drivers Reylo, Rivals With Benefits, Rivals-with-benefits to Lovers, Skinny Ben Solo, Solo Family Feelings (Star Wars), Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, but only during the race season, public love confession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:20:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28216872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scoby/pseuds/Scoby
Summary: "I can’t feel it. And it makes me want to rip everything in this room apart.”“Really? I’m – I’m so sorry.”“I’d have done the same to you if you’d been in the lead and a similar asshole to not let me through.”“Ok, I quit being sorry then. Do you want me to rip something apart for you?”“That vase with gerberas looks particularly irritating.”“Your team brought it.”“So thoughtful, I love them, that’s exactly what I want to see in pieces on the floor.”
Relationships: Leia Organa & Ben Solo & Han Solo, Leia Organa/Han Solo, Rey & Snoke (Star Wars), Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Reylo around Europe [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1927789
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Son, one day this will all be yours.”

“Vroom vrooom vrooooom neeeooooow!”

“Benito, please play on the floor. Signore wants to look at the divan.”

The clack of his mother’s heels approaches, followed by a heavier and slower thump of the shoes and walking stick of an elderly man in a three-piece suit. He suppresses the urge to grimace at the Signore and, instead, makes his toy Ferrari plummet down from the divan and onto the floor.

He decides to do Rio de Janeiro Grand Prix instead of the Baku one that he was just driving on the divan. Out of his memory, he starts with the first acceleration, then the first mild turn, then the slightly tighter Carlos Pace turn, then acceleration until Nonato curve, then the sharp turn and then the long Juncão stretch…

“A litter quieter, please”, his mother asks before indulging her customer with a long string of specifications for the divan, including the designer, his influencers, warranty period as well as the available colour and texture selection. When the man finally leaves, he nods approvingly but says that he will still have to think about the colour.

“Take your time, Signore. Our fabrics last from father to son, so you should make a choice that you'll really enjoy for a long time. Here's my card. You can come back or call to place your order. Grazie mille per averci scelto. Arrivederci!”

“Will you now take me karting?” he asks when the door closes and the store is empty again apart from the two of them and Kaydel by the cashier.

“Certo, Benito.”

His mother gives him a nod and her most radiant smile and shuffles his hair so that black strands fall over his eyes. He swipes them back as she checks once more that Kaydel knows how to handle the rest of the afternoon by herself.

“Just call me if anything.” She straightens Kaydel’s nametag and heads towards the door.

“Certo, Signora Organa. Addio, Ben, have fun!”

He waves at Kaydel and turns to follow his mother out, but she still stops by the door, kneels down to his level and wraps a tight arm around his shoulders. Her eyes scan the store full of the finest design furniture of Milan, and she sweeps her hand slowly across the view, saying:

“Son, one day this will all be yours.”

He is still clutching his toy Ferrari as he climbs on the back seat of her life-size one. Anxious to get to the karting rink, he tries to stop his stomach from rumbling, but there is no way to prevent her from hearing it.

“We’ll stop to eat first.”

“Mamma, do we have to?”

“Yes, we do. I won’t listen to one of your tantrums just because you haven’t eaten.”

“I don’t have to eat to stop a tantrum!” He kicks the back of the seat in front of him and smashes his toy car on the seat.

“You’re already starting one. We stop here.”

She pulls over next to a café and half drags him in.

“Buon pomeriggio! We’ll have two of these prosciutto and mozzarella sandwiches.” The tip of her long, fuchsia polished nail taps at the vitrine. “And then an espresso doppio, and a caffé latte for the bambino.”

“I’m not a bambino. I’m eight”, he says when they have got their order and sat down.

“Benito, you’re eight in two weeks. And that’s still a bambino.”

He frowns for a while, but eventually it melts at the deliciousness of the sandwich and the creaminess of the drink. They have almost finished when his mother's phone rings. First, she just listens and nods, looking and sounding like it is something neutral. But when he hears the words ‘alright, I’ll be there in five’, his heart sinks. After she ends the call, she jumps straight into making another one.

“Ciao, amore! Listen, a millionaire family just came to the store to buy a whole set for their new home but their kids have a lot of allergies and now they are asking a ton of details about all the materials and Kaydel can’t handle it. I’ll need to go back at once. Could you take Benito karting? … Uh-huh … Eccellente! … I’ll drop him off at your warehouse. I love you. See you soon!”

He nods silently when she tells him that his father will take him instead. They finish eating quickly and get back in the car. She uses a moment to add lipstick with the help of the rear-view mirror before turning on the engine and accelerating back to the street, just a notch above the speed limit.

When they reach the warehouse, she hastily waves at him, as he jumps out of the car, and blows an air kiss to his father who is waiting outside. Then she turns and heads back to work, pushing the speed limit a little more this time.

“Ok, kid, we’ll be ready to go in about half an hour.”

“But…”

“She didn’t tell you? Ma che diavolo!?” The fingertips of his father’s right hand pinch vigorously together in the air to highlight his frustration.

“No.” Ben kicks at the gravel on the parking lot.

“Ok, but that’s the situation. We just got a huge new shipment from China and I can’t go before we have enough of the stuff in place to clear up the loading platform. You can drive a forklift with Lando. How about that?”

The suggestion makes the corner of Ben’s mouth quirk up a notch as he follows his father into the giant hall with rows upon rows of shelves and the distinct smell of cardboard and wood blended with forklift fuel.

“Ciao, Ben!” Lando attacks his hair with a shuffle as soon as he sees him. “So what did Han say today? Can we drive together?”

“Yes!”

Lando looks up at Han for confirmation and he nods. With a pleased laugh, he gets back into the forklift and lets Ben climb up to his lap. He lets him drive almost all the time, left hand ready on the emergency break, as they move around piles of packages with cheap self-assembly furniture.

And Ben cannot deny that it is fun to drive under Lando’s constant stream of jokes spiced up with vivid gestures of his free right hand. But the forklift just moves painfully slowly. He cannot wait to get into a go-kart and circuiting the rink as fast as it can move, feeling the wind and the vibration and the humming of the little engine, and the dream of one day driving something bigger and even faster.

It feels like ages later when his father signals that they are done for the day. They are about to exit when Han turns him around, kneels down with his hand over his shoulder, swipes a hand over the view of the towering rows of shelves and says:

“Son, one day this will all be yours.”

* * *

_Vroom vrooom vrooooom neeeooooow!_

Rey floors the gas pedal for the final sprint before breaking and turning to park her go-kart. She follows the other kids to pick up her coat, scarf and backpack from the dressing room and out to the parking lot to wait for her parents. But their car is nowhere to be seen. One by one, everyone else gets picked up, until she is standing alone by the parking lot of the McLaren karting rink.

A large, steady hand lands softly on her shoulder. Snoke has come out of his office to wait with her, as he has done so often whenever her parents are late to pick her up.

“Nice work today, kid. Your chicanes are getting a lot better.”

Rey shrugs absent-mindedly, but he knows exactly what to say to get her undivided attention:

“But you could still work on…” Those words always make Rey’s tiny body perk up and eyes gleam with curiosity. “…your overtaking. You’re hesitating before you go for it. That gives a window for the other driver to block you.”

“Hux is too slow. I can’t practice with him”, she complains, remembering how Hux had not blocked her a single time today, just always let her pass too easily.

“I’ll practice with you tomorrow”, Snoke promises with a reassuring squeeze on her shoulder.

Rey smiles up at him and they continue chatting as the night falls. Finally, a car approaches through the darkness, its headlights swaying from left to right as it undulates its way forward, occupying the whole width of the road.

When it arrives under the lights of the parking lot, Rey recognises the old, silver-grey Mercedes. The driver’s door opens and her father exits, taking hold of the roof of the car when he almost falls. After steadying himself for a while, he staggers around the car and towards Rey.

“Hey, kid! Whassup? Ready? Less – lessgo!”

His words come out slurred with booze-smelling breaths, and he almost falls again when he reaches for his daughter. Snoke grabs his shoulders to stop him from both falling and touching Rey.

“You’re in no condition to drive the girl home. Can your…?”

But when he looks at the car, he sees Rey’s mother downing the last gulps of a whiskey bottle, opening the window and shouting through a stream of giggles:

“Hurry up, we’re going, Rey-Rey!”

“No, you’re definitely not going”, Snoke insists. “You can sleep here in the dressing room and take her home tomorrow when sober.”

But when Snoke lets go of him, he looks down at Rey and offers her his hand.

“We’re fine, lessgo, kid!”

Instinctively, Rey grabs the dark green velvet of Snoke’s trousers and creeps behind his leg for cover.

“See, she doesn’t want to go with you”, Snoke almost whispers, placing a protective hand on the side of her head.

Rey’s father’s eyes narrow and he pulls his fist up and back. But when he aims the punch in the approximate direction of Snoke’s head, Snoke easily blocks it and he falls down at the impact. Snoke holds out a hand to help him up, but he spits at it and staggers up and back towards the car.

“Fine, we come tomorrow, then!” He half falls in the driver’s seat, slams the door shut and turns the car back to the road, continuing his meandering pattern.

Snoke alerts the police about the drunk driver in traffic before setting up a mattress for Rey to sleep in the dressing room. And when he notices that tears are trickling from her eyes, he sits by her side until she falls asleep, stroking her hair and repeating in whispers: “Everything will be alright. They’ll be back tomorrow. Everything will be alright. I’ve got you.”

He does not wake her up when the police calls back. But in the morning, he tells her that the police had come too late. They had discovered her parents’ car only after it had crashed with a truck. So after all, they are not going to come back - ever again.


	2. Hungaroring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Rey is just my regular post-race fuck. That’s all there is between us.”

_Vroom vrooom vrooooom neeeooooow!_

Rey slows down when approaching her pit, praying that the lead she just had was large enough to compensate for the following moments when she will have a heavier car than those who are doing two stops. She can get away with only one stop on most circuits, even here at Hungaroring where most of the others stop twice. Her minimal body weight can compensate for a heavily fuel-loaded car to some extent. But it depends on a lot of variables, like how well she uses others’ pit stops to grow her gap and how quickly her own stop goes.

Her team has their hands on her car immediately after she stops: Hux and Phasma on the right front tire, Pryde and Tarkin on the left one, Griss and Kandia on the left rear tire, Peavey and Garan on the right one, Mitaka and Netal on the fuel tank. Rey strives to use the moment to relax her shoulders and mind, just like they have rehearsed with her mental coach. But it is way more difficult to do in the middle of an actual GP when her heart is pounding and her eyes seem to want nothing more than to flick around to see how her team is doing. She tries to invite Sheev’s calm voice inside her head to settle her down:

_Relax, Rey. Control the controllables. Your team’s got you. Let them do their part and focus on your own._

Her hands relax on the steering wheel and shoulders drop an invisible notch. From the corner of her left eye, she makes out the familiar, swift and confident movements of Pryde and Tarkin. They have been doing this for decades, perfecting their technique and never using more than two seconds on a tire. But when their hands are off, something is still happening in the corner of her right eye. A head with ginger hair peeking from below the grey McLaren cap is still leaning over the tire and a full second passes before it backs away and she is ready to move.

 _Asshole_ , Rey thinks to herself as she accelerates back to the circuit in pursuit of the pack that has just passed her. She keeps cursing at the heavy car that keeps dropping behind.

“Steady, Rey, just keep at it”, Snoke says in her earpiece. “They won’t get far. Not from you.”

And she grips the steering wheel and presses on. Finally, she starts seeing other cars dropping out for their second stop, and she knows that her time has come. She makes it back to the lead and gives her everything to grow the gap while she still has the lightest car.

With only a few more laps to go, the pursuit creeps up behind her. At first, she only sees a flash of red in her rear-view mirror. But already that makes her curse because she knows immediately that it can be nobody else but Ben Solo. And now that his car is lighter again, he keeps reaching her moment by moment and she can only pray that the lead she achieved earlier was large enough to play time for him not to catch her.

“You’ve got this. That piece of junk is not going to make it.”

Snoke fills the earpiece with assuring words as the final lap begins and Ben’s Ferrari is now clearly visible in the mirror but not quite on her tail yet. Rey can make out a couple of other drivers behind him but not close enough to be a real threat. As long as she can keep Solo behind her, she’ll win this Grand Prix.

At the northern sharp turn, he makes his first attempt to overtake her. But she is alert and quickly moves sideways to block him, forcing him behind her as they accelerate to the meandering stretch southwards. Rey’s knuckles whiten as she comes to the final turns: 90 degrees to the right, Ben still behind her, 180 degrees to the left, occupying the middle of the track so that there is no way to get past her, and then, the final 180 to the right…

But it comes too quickly. She is thrown out away from the apex. Her speed is so high that she struggles to even stay on the track. And that is when he slips right past her. She floors her gas pedal but the finish line is so close that there is no more time to overtake him. With a split second, she loses. Or technically, she finishes second, but it definitely feels exactly like losing.

Ben squeezes sweat out of his hair before he covers it with the red cap. Rose pats his back, congratulates him for the win and straightens the front of his jumpsuit to make the sponsor logos better visible. Then she pushes him towards the podium where a champagne bottle is shoved in his hands.

Rey unleashes her jet of champagne straight on Ben's face before taking a gulp with murderous eyes never leaving him, just like she always does when she loses. As soon as she is allowed out of the podium, he follows with his gaze as she finds her celebrating pit team and smacks one of them straight on the face, yelling:

“Hux, what the fuck were you doing with that motherfucking tire for three full seconds!”

It looks and sounds so freaking hot that Ben has to lower his still leaking champagne bottle down in front of his crotch to hide from the cameras how his cock is starting to twitch and grow in anticipation. He is still watching when two people yank Rey’s hands out of their grip around the poor man’s throat and start pushing her towards the press conference. Then, he notices that Rose is making vivid hand signals to urge him to head the same way.

The press conference is full of the familiar questions about their tactics and plans for the next GP. Those are simple to answer in theory, but difficult in practice, when Rey sneaks her hand under the table to grab his thigh.

* * *

“Buonasera, Signorina. We’ll have the risotto. Benito, how much are you eating?”

“A quarter portion.”

“So full portions for us and a quarter for the young Signore, please. And your best white wine.”

“Certo, Signora.” The waitress takes back the menus they have barely glanced at and leaves them.

Ben suppresses a yawn. This family dinner is technically a very early morning meal for his body that just returned from Adelaide yesterday. Leia eyes uneasily at his baggy eyes and hollow cheeks and how his sweater slumps around his bony torso, the shoulder seams hanging down over his skinny biceps.

But she knows better than to say anything, considering that there are still five full months left of the season. He is already carrying extra kilos just because of his height. The least he can do to have any chance against the shorter drivers is to shed away every expendable gram of fat, water and muscle. And he has made it very clear for her that she is never going to be able to convince him otherwise. So Leia makes an effort to gather her attention on other things.

“Are you still with the girl from McLaren?”

“No, Mamma, we’re not together.”

“But I just read a long speculation about your relationship in Chi.”

“They write whatever they like." Ben waves his hand as an elaborate sign of indifference. "Rey is just my regular post-race fuck. That’s all there is between us.”

Leia winces with her whole face. “Don’t say like that. It undermines women.”

“She'd say the same about me.”

In his head, he is thinking that Rey would probably even add something filthier and far more disrespectful. Their “arrangement” started last season, in Buenos Aires Grand Prix. Rey beat him by four full seconds and attacked him from her higher ground on the podium with her signature smirk that was even more victorious and sly than normal.

He overtook her on the way to the press conference and whispered that if she would not stop that, he would take her in his hotel room for tonight and not take any responsibility. To that, she shrugged a shoulder and said ‘fine, I’m looking forward to it’. He was grateful that they sat behind a table for the press conference, because she continued her game the whole time, which made the front of his jumpsuit bulge in a way that was way too indecent for the cameras to capture.

As soon as they were dismissed, he did as he had threatened, and they spent the night in his room at Hilton Buenos Aires, fucking like there was no tomorrow. Since then, it became a habit. After every race, one of them was humiliated and furious while the other one swelled with ecstasy and feeling on top of the world – even if not for winning the entire race, at least for winning their personal archnemesis. And that worked as just the right combination of wild emotional turmoil that ended up in raging orgasms. In the morning, they would always kiss each other goodbye, swear to kill each other on the circuit next time and go their separate ways, each heading for the airport with their own team.

Han interrupts Ben’s train of thought by throwing confused hands in the air and asking:

“And is that a Formula One thing? First drive around in circles, then screw around, drenched in champagne but chronically starved and jetlagged? Is that what makes you happy? Or how about after this season you quit and start learning to take over the business at Falcon? I could teach you a few things about logistics and marketing and finding the cheapest suppliers and and all that…”

“Or a real business like Skywalker Design”, Leia cuts him off. “Where you can make a real impact instead of selling crap patched together in sweatshops.”

“Come on, Principessa, people need furniture and not everyone can afford your fancy designer stuff", Han protests, rolling his eyes with a movement that involves his whole head. "Give them what they need at an affordable price, that’s what I call real impact.”

“Poor people can’t afford poor quality!” Leia slams her hand on the table. “People need to buy your stuff over and over again when it doesn’t last.”

“That’s what I call business.” Han flashes a cocky smile.

“I make more money with one sale than you make with ten.”

“Doesn’t matter when I sell in thousands.”

“I won’t tolerate you criticising the brand that my family has been building consistently ever since my great grandmother founded it.”

Han shrugs theatrically, exaggerating the gesture by spreading his whole arms. Leia rolls her eyes, looking for a new argument. Their food arrives before she can find one, though.

But once they stick their forks in the creamy puddles of rice and asparagus spread over their plates, insert a little in their mouths and chew, they discover another problem.

“It’s overcooked. Ma che diavolo!?” Leia’s fork drops on the table as both her hands rise in the air, fingertips ferociously joined. “Signorina!”

Ben grabs her arm and tries to pull it back down. “Mamma, let’s not make a scene over a risotto, too.”

“No, let’s. This is not what we’re paying for. Besides, what else is there to make a scene about?”

“I bet you can think of plenty of topics, Vostra Altezza", Han says. "You just made one about Ben’s career.”

“And I’m not finished with that. Let me just handle this one first.”

When the waitress arrives, Leia politely but firmly sends their risottos back to the kitchen before turning intense eyes back on Ben.

“Let me emphasize this again, Benito. Right now, you have a nice hobby but not a real career.”

“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Ben?” Ben shakes his arms at straight angles in the air to make his point. “And you like driving a Ferrari, too.”

“I’m calling you with the name I’ve given you, not some cosmopolitan short version of it!” Leia insists with a raised index finger. “Now listen, son, I like driving on a _normal_ road at a _normal_ speed.”

“You liked it when I let you drive the Imola circuit.” He sweeps his hand through the air, curving upwards like the shape of the Imola circuit.

Leia giggles when she remembers her son’s old race car that was light as a feather, flew over the asphalt like it was air and obeyed her every steering move like it could anticipate them. But she forces her tone back to serious.

“Maybe, but sooner or later you’ll have to face it: nobody races Formula One forever.”

“Who cares?" Ben shrugs in a way that disturbingly reminds Leia of the way his father does it. "I’ve already made enough money to cover myself for life.”

“Work is not only for money. It gives…” She opens her palm in the air like sending her words out of it dramatically flying upwards. “…substance to life. Leaves a legacy. When my customers know the Skywalker name and seek us out and find something they really love and are going to cherish in their home for life - so much that if their house burns, they’ll rescue our products right after their family…” She sighs contently. “That’s fulfilment.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Ben waves his hand to dismiss his mother’s appeal and she gradually yields, shuffles his hair gently and drops the subject.

When the new risottos arrive and they taste them, even Leia lets out a content _mmmmm_. Their voices rise up to a shouting level only a few more times during the rest of the dinner.


	3. Nürburgring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Do you want me to rip something apart for you?”

In less than two seconds, Pryde, Tarkin, Phasma and Hux all disappear from Rey's peripheral vision and she speeds out of the pit. This was her second stop. Nürburgring circuit has so many sharp turns that it does not make sense to carry any extra fuel weight, not even for her.

But both of her stops went perfectly. After everyone has done their second stop, she is in the lead and her car feels like a silvery, agile angel that carries her easily lap after lap around the circuit. Now she just has to keep this. Like Sheev would say:

_Until the end. Control the controllables. One moment at a time._

Rey repeats his words to herself and tries not to focus too much on the Ferrari in her rear-view mirror. Ben Solo is not her controllable. Only her own pedals and steering wheel and head.

But at the first bundle of curves on lap 66 it happens again: he slips past her when she is making her second turn and pushed too far from the apex.

Rey curses aloud but brings her mind quickly back to her own controllables. The race is not over. She still has the power to keep almost flooring her gas pedal and making her turns exact, hanging right at Ben’s tail and scouting for any opportunity to overtake.

But four curves pass without him giving her a single chance. He sticks flawlessly to the middle of the track, not leaving any space on either side. When they arrive to the last chicane, Rey knows that she has to go for it more aggressively. She pushes as close as she can and pushes between him and the track edge. Her whole car trembles as her front wing brushes against his rear wheel.

He is pushed a bit to the side by the impact but steers a rapid course-correction to get back in front of her. But she does not give in and hits his front wheel instead when it suddenly yanks right in front of her.

The impact slows her down and distracts her course. She fights the car under her control and speeds up again, but in her peripheral vision she can see how Ben is no longer on the track but spinning wildly towards the wall.

Pure panic rushes through her. She has promised him so many times that she will kill him. What if she has now done it?

When Rey passes the chicane on her next lap, she sees the spot where Ben crashed the wall swarming with paramedics. And on the lap after that, there is nobody left, just the remains of his trashed Ferrari being dragged away.

The distracted thoughts and the side glances have slowed Rey down significantly. Somebody passes her in a Renault. Then somebody in an Alfa Romeo, then Benetton and Williams.

“Pull it together, bitch!” Snoke yells in Rey’s earpiece. “Get your ass up to the front of this pack where it belongs!”

Snoke knows exactly what Rey wants him to tell her in this kind of situations. And normally, his words work like a charm to pick her up. But now it seems like nothing can erase from her mind the picture of the wrecked red car and the speculation about what has happened to the driver.

Rey has crashed before, sometimes badly, sending other drivers to the hospital for several days. But she has never had a problem shutting it out of her mind and finishing the race strong. Later, there has always been plenty of time to get the McLaren secretary to send a polite get-well-soon card to the hospital.

But crashing with Ben has left her irredeemably devastated. Somehow, over the course of all the nights spent together since the Buenos Aires GP last season, she has let him in, too deep into her heart, no matter how many times they have repeated that ‘this is just a necessary post-race fuck’.

Anger, sorrow, fear and frustration all battle over her. She still manages to finish in fifth place, even with tears flowing under her helmet and blurring her vision. This circuit is familiar enough for her to not need fully clear eyesight or emotional stability to stay on the track.

The good side of not finishing on the podium is that she has to waste no time on a press conference but can head straight from her car to the first person she sees in Ferrari’s red team uniform. It is a tiny, Asian-looking woman who is just putting down a cellphone from her ear, the worried look on her face melting a little.

“Hey, excuse me, I’m Rey.”

“Yeah, I know you. I’m Rose.”

They hastily shake hands. That is the absolute maximum of polite gestures that Rey has patience for.

“Where is he?”

“In Adenau hospital. They just called. He’s in ICU and they’re not yet quite sure how it’s all gonna turn out, but at least there’s no immediate threat to his life.”

Rey nods and pulls all her strength to fight back a new set of tears. Rose apparently notices her efforts, as her voice softens a notch.

“We’re going to see him with the team. Would you like a ride?” She gestures with her head at the red-clad group behind her.

Rey knows all their faces. She has seen them around on pits. And sometimes, when they have purposefully selected the same hotel with Ben, she has seen them around over breakfast, though they have always taken care to sit in different tables. They have kept a polite habit of nodding as a greeting, but she has never found any of them worthy enough to even ask their names. Now, she swallows her pride and nods at Rose.

Plenty of introductions and handshakes later, Rey sits in Ferrari’s team van, like a small, light grey air bubble in a red sea. Rose sits next to her and makes a new phone call as soon as the car sets off.

“Ciao, Signora Organa! Stiamo andando a vederlo. Ti chiamo di nuovo se riesce a parlare…”

She continues with brief silences and more sentences that Rey does not understand. Some of the others try to chat with her briefly, but their English is mostly broken, and after a few trials, they slip back to talking Italian among themselves.

The drive to Adenau feels like taking forever. By the time they reach the hospital, Ben is already out of the ICU and in an ordinary room. But he is still unconscious and a heart-wrenching sight.

* * *

The last thing Ben remembers is the black and white front wing of Rey’s McLaren hitting his front wheel. He has no idea how much time has passed since then, when he opens his eyes and sees the white ceiling and a variety of tubes connected to him. But he does not care, because all his rational thinking is swallowed by the panic of noticing that he cannot feel his arms and legs.

He uses the only part of him that seems to work and just shouts. That quickly alerts a nurse to check on him.

“Relax, relax”, she tries to calm him down. “Look, I know you’re not feeling your best but…”

“Not my best!?” he cuts her off. “What the hell has happened to my arms and legs?”

“You’ll learn to use them again.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your spine got hit and the nerve connections are crushed. But they're not gone. You can still teach them to function. It'll just take time, especially restoring the fine motor skills – and…” The nurse swallows uneasily and avoids his eyes.

“And what?” He lifts his head a little from the pillow as the only gesture of insistence he can manage.

“Your reflexes will never be the same.”

“So I won’t drive again.”

“If your rehab goes well, you’ll still be able to get a normal driving license”, the nurse hurries to explain, afraid of the rising fury in Ben’s voice.

“But I won’t race again.”

“No, Sir. I’m sorry.”

He sinks his head down on the pillow, wishing it to fall all the way through the fabric and stuffing and the bed and the floor and the lower floors and earth. The nurse still seems determined to cheer him up.

“A physical therapist will come later to give you more advanced exercises, but if you want, you can already start with a simple one: Concentrate on one finger at a time and imagine that you lift it. Then do the same to one toe at a time. Then the whole hand, the whole foot, each forearm, each lower leg, the whole arm and the whole leg. You can do it as much as you want. Imagining won’t really fatigue you. When you do this enough, it will become possible to make actual movements.”

Ben blinks slowly. This is not an exercise he has had in mind before the race, but he is slowly starting to make peace with it that this is how he will spend his waking hours for unforeseeable future. At least he will have something to do with his mind until his body will start cooperating.

“Fine, I’ll do that. Anything else?”

“Your girlfriend should be back any minute now. She has hardly left this room during the two days you’ve been here. But I insisted half an hour ago that she’d go for lunch. I could hear the poor girl’s stomach rumbling.”

“I don’t have…”

Before he can finish, he is struck by the meaning of what the nurse just said. Who can she be talking about? Has Rose spent so much time here that the staff has started to think of her as his girlfriend? He hopes not. Rose should have her hands full of work now. His car is most likely wrecked and the press must have a thousand questions he cannot be answering himself.

The other scenario that comes to his mind is too far-fetched. Rey has flown back to London yesterday. And there is no way she would…

The door clicks behind the curtain, the nurse nods with a smile at somebody and walks out saying: “I’ll leave you two to it.”

And when the incoming guest appears by his bed from behind the curtain, Ben sees that it is none other than Rey. Rey whose eyes look strangely red and swollen but whose face lights up when seeing him awake. She is quickly by his side and takes his hand. That makes Ben grunt aloud.

“Oh, sorry, I didn't…” She drops his hand and he realises that holding it is probably exactly how she has spent most of her time here.

“No, go ahead. It doesn’t hurt, not physically, just…”

“Just what?”

“It’s just that I can’t feel it. And it makes me want to rip everything in this room apart.”

“Really? I’m – I’m so sorry.”

“I’d have done the same to you if you’d been in the lead and a similar asshole to not let me through.”

“Ok, I quit being sorry then. Do you want me to rip something apart for you?”

“That vase with gerberas looks particularly irritating.”

“Your team brought it.”

“So thoughtful, I love them, that’s exactly what I want to see in pieces on the floor.”

“Ok.”

Rey picks up the vase and smashes it down on the floor with all her strength. She has to admit that Ben was right. It feels excellent, like a weight shrugged off from her shoulders. And the pool of water with shards of glass and scattered flowers at her feet is a satisfying sight. When she looks at Ben again, she sees that he has relaxed a notch, too.

“Thank you.”

“Anything else I can do for you?”

“I should practice using my fingers and toes. You can stay. Actually, it would be nice if you stay. Just let me focus.”

She sits down next to his bed and watches as he closes his eyes and shifts his attention to one finger at a time.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“I’m imagining moving them.”

She nods and continues observing him in silence for a little longer. Then, she lifts her own hand and brings her fingertips hovering over his.

“Touch me”, she says softly.

He opens his eyes to look at her and the minimal distance she has left between their fingertips. And that becomes his mission for the following days. Rey arrives every morning and stays until the evening, taking only short breaks to go outside.

After a few days of determined practice, he makes it: his index finger moves the three-millimetre distance to Rey’s skin, and he can feel the contact, not much of it but definitely a pressure that was not there before. The unexpected touch makes Rey gasp. She was already beginning to doubt if this practice would work at all. But unmistakably, Ben lowers his finger and does it again. With a smile, she lifts her hand higher to give him a new level of challenge.

But Ben does not have a lot of time to practice with her anymore. The next day, he is transferred to Milan, and Rey cannot postpone getting back to London anymore.

* * *

Rey finishes third in the next Grand Prix. She blames little flaws by her team – especially Hux is so easy to blame when he just stands there and looks like everything could be his fault – but she knows that they have not done anything that would cost more than fractions of a second. The real problem is that the driver who brings out her best performance is out of the game.

Ben is disgusted by the thought of watching the race, but he reads the results in the newspaper his parents bring him the next day. It is his first day at home out of the hospital, so they stay for a while to help set up everything in the house easy for him to do with limited control of his limbs and fingers. One of the necessary things to help him with is turning the pages of the newspaper. Once the page for Formula One news is up, he is able to grab it and hold it for reading by himself after his parents are gone.

The picture of Rey behind the press conference table looks depressingly neutral. Her expression does not give away a single bit of emotion. The depressing part is to remember that if she was in the third place having just left Ben out of the podium, she would be absolutely beaming. And just a few moments later, she would be throwing him down on her hotel room’s king-sized bed and crawling over him to suck the skin of his neck like it was her real prize.

The memory gets him hard, and he lets go of the newspaper and makes an effort to arrange his hands to lower his pants. He can only wear the type with elastic waistbands, as any buttons or zippers would still be out range for his fine motor skills. Once he is free from the clothing on the way, he manages to grab his erection – but with no control of the pressure. His hand refuses any nuanced grip between feather-light and iron-hard.

 _Better too hard than too light_ , he figures and starts moving against his hand even though it hurts so much it makes him grunt aloud. He still keeps at it, mind focused on recalling every detail about Rey’s naked body, until he releases a gush of thick cum that wets his hand and the hem of his shirt. Then come the tears.

The awareness hits him with a crushing weight that no more racing means more than just no more racing. It also means no more Rey in his life. And no matter how much he is trying to convince himself that it is just the sex he is craving and he can always find somebody else for that, his mind starts flooding with images of Rey in other situations, too: having breakfast with him in Rio de Janeiro and explaining with shiny eyes all the adjustments she made to her first go-kart; babbling in her sleep in Melbourne when his body decided to bless him with once waking up early in local time so that he could watch her and press a kiss on the trail of drool by the corner of her mouth without her noticing; laughing her head off when trying to teach him a British accent and making him try it on a hotel receptionist in Aintree.

Shit. What is he going to do if he is in love with Rey?


	4. Monaco

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I’m tired of the chronic starvation and jetlag, even the champagne.”

The new season has to have already started, but Ben sticks to his decision to ignore watching it or even reading the news about it. And it has worked to cut a large chunk of pain out of his life. He would almost consider himself happy now, wandering through the sunlit rooms of his beautiful apartment on legs that finally respond to his will, or caressing his hand over the shiny features of his new Ferrari - no longer a racing model but still sleek and with a stylish hint of a rear wing.

A couple of weeks ago, he was finally granted a driving license again, and he feels like never getting tired of watching the car he bought straight after that. That is where his eyes are fixated when his phone buzzes. He opens it to see a text from the person he has deliberately not been in touch with since he left Adenau hospital.

Rey tried calling and texting him a few times soon after he was back to Milan, seemingly to ask how his rehab was going. Back then, it felt too painful to respond – too much of holding on to the life that he was forced to leave behind – too much of the past that he should let die. So he told Rose to let Rey know that he was fine and ignored her himself. And soon, she stopped trying to contact him - until now, as his phone stubbornly declares:

_I don’t know if you’re following the season, but Monaco GP is this weekend. Since it’s just a few hours from you, I was wondering if you’d like to come and watch it and maybe hang out. I can get you a seat by the pit. Just let me know_

Maybe he should think a bit longer, maybe ask more about what she has in mind. But suddenly, his every cell curls with the sting of missing Rey – the sting he has tried so hard to push aside for months. Besides, his texting is still slow and tedious, even though he has bought the largest phone he could find so that his clumsy fingers could hit the buttons. So the only response he types is:

_Yes_

* * *

Ben has only sat by the pit for the first few laps but already decided that he hates Rey’s team. He is sitting between the ginger mechanic, whom he has seen Rey punching and strangling multiple times, and an older man who keeps staring at him with intense cobalt blue eyes from below his light grey cap. The cap is his only official McLaren accessory. Instead of the jumpsuit worn by the mechanics, he is in a grey tuxedo with an iridescent, silvery pattern that gleams in the sunlight.

Rey comes in for one stop only, and the team seems to know what they are doing and sends Rey quickly off pursuing her lead position back. But when they return to sit down after their two-second dance, they pick up talking so much trash about Rey and each other that Ben is dying to either close his ears or smack them all.

He manages to hold it together, though, at least until the leading car comes out of its second pit stop. That is when it turns out that Rey did not catch it. She is stuck in second place. And in a few laps, another driver drops her back to third.

“See that, Solo?” The old man next to Ben speaks to him for the first time. “A couple of years ago I seriously considered buying you. I saw in you what all team owners live to see. Raw, untamed power and reckless speed. But I knew it would have been a mistake. Because I saw that keeping you on the other side made _her_ drive better. And last season, you brought her so close to championship. But then she almost killed her muse. And once you were out of the game, she lost it. Now you see, there she goes again.”

He turns on the little microphone connected to his earpiece system and yells in it: “What the fuck are you doing, loose cunt bitch? This is your circuit, not theirs! Now pull the fuck together and slice those motherfuckers to pieces if you don’t want me doing that to you when you’re done.”

The team cheers a little when they see on their screen how Rey speeds up a little, creeping close to battle for the second place again. Ben probably should not interfere. If she loses her position because he disturbs their strategy, she will probably send him to hospital once more. But that kind of voice of reason is out of his reach. After spending who knows how long time in love with Rey, and the past few days gradually admitting it to himself, he simply cannot listen to anyone yelling at her like that.

With all the gracelessness of his limited coordination, he snatches the microphone from the man and punches his head with his elbow hard enough to knock him out. Paying no more attention to him, he says to the microphone:

“Rey, it’s me. Listen, I know you've got this. Just go easy, one moment at a time, first past him… Yeah, that’s right, girl!”

Others cheer around him as Rey slips back to second place. Ben can feel his heart soar at the marvel that she is. And he lets all his thoughts out, straight through the microphone into her earpiece:

“You’re amazing, Rey, the best driver I know, this GP is yours. You can do it, you can take him.”

A shadow of a doubt passes over him. She is still almost a full lap behind the leading car, and there are not many laps to go. But she keeps speeding up and he knows to expect miracles from her.

“That’s right. Keep eating the gap. I’ll be waiting for you when you finish, and I’ve missed you so much that I want to hold you for ages when you’re drenched in champagne.”

He keeps talking his heart out as she keeps catching the lead lap after lap. When the final lap starts, she is right at the leader’s tail.

“Easy now, just one overtake and holding your place and then it’s done. You’re doing awesome.” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before he continues: “I love you, Rey. Have loved for so long. You’ve got this – sweetheart.”

That does it. Rey speeds past the leader to the first place and looks almost like she is picking up yet another gear as she stretches her gap before crossing the finish line first.

From the podium, Rey can see Ben among the audience, head popping over everyone else’s, smiling back at her with his full set of dimples on display. She is not entirely sure how much he really meant of the things he just said to her in the car. After all, he seemed to deliberately disappear from her life for almost a year already.

But she chose to believe because it was exactly what she had longed for and it helped her finish her fastest laps ever on this circuit. And now, she still chooses to enjoy the final moments that she can innocently believe him, before he possibly casually tells her that he just said what he thought would help her win. That is still a little while away, so she smiles with her whole heart, closes her eyes and lets her competitors shower her with champagne.

She gets down from the podium and heads towards the press conference with a blissful grin still taped on her face. But her steps are cut short when Ben pushes through the crowd and grabs her in his arms, just like he told her he would. And she knows that she is smearing his shirt with champagne and sweat, but he does not seem to mind, so she nuzzles her whole head against his chest that feels so much firmer and less bony than she remembers.

But she does not have time to examine it for long before he cups her head with both hands and bends it back to kiss her, ignoring the surrounding flashing of cameras. Looks like the gossip magazines are going to write a lot more about them than just speculation this time. But it does not matter if it means that she can have this. Because this is exactly what she has longed for. Ben takes his time refreshing his memory about every part of her mouth, then lets her go with a nudge on her arm.

“You should go. I’ll wait right here.”

She nods and pecks his lips once more before disappearing into the press conference room.

“I can’t help but start by asking: what did we just see there?” the first reporter asks.

“Uh, my best ever race in Monaco”, Rey answers, letting a victorious grin conquer her face.

“I mean after that, between you and Ben Solo.”

“That’s what you meant? It’s just…” It takes her a moment to find the right words and gather courage to say them, knowing that Ben is still listening to this on the screens outside. “…the greatest love I’ve ever known - or imagined.”

The reporter seems happy with her answer and they move on to other questions, mostly about her race. The sports journalists are innocent with their limited thirst for details about her private life. If the gossip press contacts her later for interviews, she will deal with them appropriately. Now she is happy to be done with simple questions and soon back out and in Ben’s arms.

Ben has not even booked a hotel and says that he has prepared to drive back to Milan for the night. But Rey finds that scenario unthinkable, so they head directly to her room in Monte-Carlo Bay & Resort. She talks the whole way about how excellent the beach and pool are and how they definitely should go swimming, but as soon as the door clicks behind them, swimming seems suddenly a very distant idea.

In a flash, they are all over each other, frantically kissing and peeling off clothes at the same time. And then Rey has to stop and gasp, because she sees him like this out of his race season shape for the first time. And looks like he has not only stopped starving himself but also channelled his free time and limited fine motor skills into lifting weights. For a moment, all she can do is slide her hands over his bare skin and study the new muscles that have covered the bones she remembers.

When he gets too uncomfortable with her attention, he uses just one arm to pick her up and throw her on the bed. He crawls next to her slowly, taking his time to kiss her all over in the process, like he had been starving for her for months. Then he rolls her on top of him and grabs her hip with one hand and his erection with the other to help her press down and take him in. When she drops all the way down against his hips and buries his hard length inside her, they are almost back to where they left off last season, after the last GP they both finished. But still, something about it is different.

Everything goes a bit slower, and the emotions are subtler. No fiery confusion about if they would rather kill each other or make each other come. No feverish chasing for a release. Rather, a sweet, overwhelming sensation that gently flutters and convulses the whole body. And time, so much time for relished kisses and caresses everywhere. They cannot even distinguish specific moments of orgasm. Only a multitude of deeply pleasant sensations woven among each other like blurred beads on a string. A lot later, when feeling satiated, they settle into each other’s arms, mouths at a comfortable distance to easily kiss over and over again.

“Did you mean what you said in the race?” Rey asks quietly, stroking his hair behind his ear.

“Of course. Did you doubt that?”

“Well, it did help me win. You could have just guessed that and used it as a strategy.”

“I didn’t. Did you mean what you said to the press?”

“I did.”

“They’ll be all over us now”, Ben points out. “Did you consider that?”

“I don’t care. I’ve missed you so much. I want you without hiding.”

“Let’s deal with it then. I guess you have no problem handling a few snoopy journalists, considering the kind of people you work with.”

Rey chuckles slyly. “So you enjoyed watching the race with them, huh? Did you already get into a fight with Hux?”

“I think I barely escaped that. I have no idea how you’ve put up with him for years.”

“I guess I just got so used to him. We practically grew up together on the karting rink. He’s like the unbearably irritating brother I never had.”

“But that’s still mild compared to your team owner. He seems outright creepy.”

“Snoke? What do you mean?”

“Well, besides his generally freaky behaviour, just the way he talks about you and to you is way unacceptable.”

“What? But he’s always been there for me, and after my parents died, he was the only one I had for a long time. And he's helped me win so many GPs…”

“It was you who won them, not him. And you can do it without him. I could talk to the owners at Ferrari. Maybe they want to buy you for next season.”

“Next season – yeah – I…” Rey rolls to her back to look at the ceiling. “I don’t think there’ll be one for me.”

“You mean to quit?”

“This is not what makes me happy anymore. I’m tired of the chronic starvation and jetlag, even the champagne.”

“Do you have other plans then?” Ben traces slowly the outline of her shoulder with his fingertips.

“Since you’ve been out, I’ve had drinks with Rose after every GP. She’s been telling me that Milan is a great place to live.”

“Really? Do you mean..?”

“I don’t mean to push it. Of course I could get my own place. But I wouldn’t mind finding it somewhere close to you and taking some time off to start over. In fact, I don’t think I’m gonna wait for the end of the season. I’m gonna quit – _today_.”

“You’re not serious… See what you just did there on the circuit. You could win the whole championship! You can’t just throw…”

She cuts him off by rolling back over him and sealing his mouth with a kiss. She wriggles relentlessly against him until he begins to grow harder again. When satisfied at her distraction, she stops and sits up.

“Now we should definitely go swimming.”

“Stupid Rey, I can’t just go to the beach or the pool with a boner. There are other people…”

“Not my problem.” Rey smirks as she gets up to pull on her bikini.

* * *

A chunk of creamy risotto falls from Rey’s fork on the ornate table cloth and her eyes turn instinctively to Ben’s mother in panic. But she brushes it off with a pat on Rey’s arm and a gentle laugh.

“Don’t worry, dear. That’s made to endure washing over and over again.” To emphasise her point, she glares at Ben’s father from the corner of her eye. He makes a quick move to change the topic:

“So have you thought about it, Ben, what we talked with Lando the other day?”

Ben sighs and Rey sneaks a soothing hand on his thigh as he turns visibly uncomfortable.

“Papà, it’s fun to hang out with you both at the warehouse and all, but it’s just not the kind of work that would make me happy. Doesn't Lando's daughter spend there a lot more time than me? Wouldn't she like to take it over?”

“But what are you going to do then?” Han shakes his open palms spread out like expecting an answer from the heavens.

“Actually, we do have some plans with Ben”, Rey tells him calmly. “Babe, do you want to tell them?”

“Yes. We’re planning to open a karting rink. For tourists and locals to drive for fun and for kids to train. And with a scholarship system for those who have talent but no money.”

“Really, Ben?” Leia blinks like subtly holding back tears. “That sounds – interesting… But who – who’s going to take over the business then? I was hoping to retire next year. I’m getting too old for this...”

“Mamma, can’t you see how Kaydel is dying for the job? And unlike me, she’s actually _good_ with those kinds of things like being nice to customers and memorising textile care instructions and the names and biographies of famous designers.”

“Kaydel?”

“Looks like you still see her just as an intern, but didn’t you look at the bookkeeping after you returned from the expo last month? Just in the two days that I was helping her in the store, I saw her fill a whole page with orders. And all the time she kept talking to me about new designers she was obsessed about and hoping you’d get into the collection. Just let her take over for a while and see what she can do, and you’ll be relieved to leave the store for her next year.”

Ben sweeps his arm over the table to illustrate the future of the store, almost knocking out a bottle of white wine in the process.

“Huh.” His mother looks down, clearly immersed in considering the new thought in her head.

Towards the end of the dinner, Ben's parents are already asking questions about their plan with the karting rink. And the next day, Ben and Rey drive with the open roof Ferrari to have a look at several alternative locations. Four months later, they open Ahch-To Karting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning so much for an intimate love confession, but in the end, I couldn't resist it happening in a press conference, just like in [A star awakens](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26513887/chapters/64620880)

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, feed me with kudos/comments and find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/IamScoby)


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